Ruth Poundwhite [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the Soulful Sales Show, where we talk about believing in the value of your offers, getting them in front of your right people, and selling more of what you do in your unique way. Hi, and welcome back to another episode of the Soulful Sales Show. So today I am going a bit rogue, and I am recording a completely off-the-cuff episode. There are two things I know I want to talk about today. One is taking action in alignment with your actual capacity versus what you think you should be doing based on your to-do list. And two is the 4th Annual Soulful Sales Summit, which is just an incredible event that I have coming up. It’s totally free, and I want to talk you through a bit about what’s happening inside that event. So Number 1, taking action in alignment with your actual capacity.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:00:56]:
This podcast recording is me doing just that. So since I have been away in Thailand, I went to Thailand at the end of 2025 through to the middle of January 2026. Before I went away, I was on a really good roll with my podcast and pre-recording episodes and knowing exactly what I wanted to say. But as is always the way when you take a bit of an extended break off work, and it had been a while since I had had that much of a break off work, and I’m talking about a proper mental break as well as physically not doing my work. As is always the case, it takes you a while to get back in the flow of things, right? And because of the way that I had planned my Q1, I basically came back from Thailand and dove right back into summit mode. And when I’m in summit mode, you know, it’s really all-consuming. There’s always a lot to do to prepare for my summits. But what I hadn’t anticipated this time around was is the unique and special combination of not just summit mode but also marathon training mode.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:02:04]:
So I don’t know, I must have mentioned this on the podcast because I’m definitely just talking about it all the time because it’s such a huge part of my headspace right now, but I don’t know if you know, but I’m training for the London Marathon, to run the London Marathon in April this year, and I’m on week 10 of my marathon training. I actually started a bit early, had a bit of a break when I was in Thailand, and then came back and started again. And let’s just say that at this point in the training, the miles are massively increased every week, you know, not just the long run but also midweek runs as well. I’m very hungry all the time, I’m very tired all the time, it’s all very intense and it’s all a lot of mental strength required to keep going as well as the physical stuff. So yeah, that combined with summit prep means that I need to be really honest with myself about what my actual capacity is right now. And I will say I’m very, very grateful to have so much support in my business. And actually, the summit has not been stressing me out at all the way that it often would at this stage. So very, very grateful for that.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:03:09]:
But there’s a lot going on. And this week, I actually decided to skip one of my runs, which seems like an obvious choice if you’re tired, right? But the thing is that my brain kept telling me I wasn’t allowed to do it, that my plan wouldn’t work if I skipped the run, I shouldn’t do it. It was really, really hard for me to give myself permission to skip that run, but I did skip it and I gave myself the energy boost that I absolutely massively needed at this point in marathon training. And then on the business side of things, I kept thinking, ‘Oh wait, I’ve got to record a podcast. What am I going to talk about? I don’t have the bandwidth to think about anything juicy to say because everything juicy is going into my summit right now, including my own presentation in the summit and a masterclass I’m doing as part of the summit. And I thought, you know what, I am just going to give myself permission. Firstly, I could just skip this episode, but when I gave myself permission to actually just show up the way I am now and to do an off-the-cuff recording and just to share what’s going on and just to be honest about it, I could feel it in my body, like it instantly relaxed and it made everything else feel more doable. So this is what I’m doing.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:04:18]:
I’ve given myself permission to do a really imperfect podcast episode, but actually there is a really important lesson here and potentially you need to hear it. So hopefully that’s helpful. And I really want to tell you about the Soulful Sales Summit, so I didn’t want to skip this episode because it’s really important to me that I do justice to the event I’m about to put on and share with you all the goodness that’s going to happen in the summit. Before we get to the summit, by the way, I need to do a shameless shout out for my marathon fundraiser. So not only am I training to run 26.2 miles, which feels a lot, especially given years of chronic fatigue and kind of retraining my body to even accept any kind of running. It’s kind of a miracle I’m here already, actually. But as well as that, I’m actually raising £2,500 for women and girls living in poverty. So I am running for ActionAid.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:05:13]:
The reason I chose this charity— I actually chose it 10 years ago when I ran the marathon the first time— was because a few years before that, I had been traveling around Southeast Asia. I had seen firsthand how important their work was, especially with young girls in countries like Cambodia, and just seeing some of the things going on there was so heartbreaking. And I really wanted to choose a charity that would help in those places. ActionAid is also currently doing a lot of work for the people in Gaza to help them, especially through the winter, and to access nutritious food and medical support and all of that. They work with a lot of girls in education and help them with jobs, careers, businesses, all of this stuff. So it’s really, really important work. I would really appreciate your donations. So like I said, I’m raising £2,500 at the moment.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:06:13]:
I have just gone over £1,000, which is amazing, but I still have such a long way go. And it gives me such a personal boost to keep going on this journey when I can connect with the difference that is making, because I’m not gonna lie, I have thought about quitting quite a lot over the last few weeks. It is definitely requiring a lot of mental toughness from me and a lot of, you know, a lot of thought about why I’m doing this in the first place. So if you can, I would really appreciate any and all donations to this amazing cause. You can go to justgiving.com/page/ruthharrison #ruth-white. That is my fundraising page on JustGiving. I’m posting regular updates to that page as well, and I’m just so, so grateful for all of you who have already donated. If you are thinking you’re going to donate but you’re waiting till the last minute, I would really just encourage you to come and donate now, to just give me that boost to keep getting through the gruelling training.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:07:08]:
And I appreciate you so, so much. Um, yeah, so that’s justgiving.com/page/ruth-white, but I will put that link in the show notes. Okay, so let me tell you about what is coming up, and that is the Soulful Sales Summit. And I really want to encourage you to hear me out, even if you’re not into summits. Like, I know not everyone is into summits, or potentially you find it too much, or there’s, there’s so much going on. But what I want to offer you is that even one idea— and there are many of these kind of ideas in this summit— but even one idea could change your business completely. This year. And this is the 4th annual Soulful Sales Summit, but I have made a slight tweak to the positioning of the summit this year because of a lot of what I’ve been hearing from people is that business is different, sales is harder, sales are harder, whatever the right way to say that is.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:08:03]:
People aren’t paying as much attention as they used to be. AI is making it harder to stand out. This is a lot of what I’ve been hearing from clients, from peers, I actually had a really great year in 2025, despite all of this noise going on. And that noise actually was affecting my head as well. Like, I was kind of believing it until I looked at the facts, I looked at the numbers. And what I’m realizing is that it’s not about overhauling everything that we’re doing, but it is about making really smart tweaks and putting our focus in the right direction. And the Soulful— the heart of the Soulful Sales Summit is all about selling your way. It’s not about bro marketing and following the latest trend and being everywhere and hustling harder and burning yourself out or pretending to have a personality transplant.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:08:48]:
It’s about doing it your way in alignment with your unique energy, with your personality, with your capacity, right? So even if we are talking about what’s working in 2026 and tweaks we get to make, this is not about overhauling any— everything, okay? I promise you. And there’s just so much goodness in this summit. I don’t want you to miss it. So my presentation is 5 Elements of Offers that sell in 2026 based on what I’ve been noticing from myself, from my peers, from my clients. And this is something I’ve never shared before, but I’m really excited to share as part of the summit. Did I mention this is free, by the way? You can get the free ticket at soulfulsalesummit.com. We’ve got talks about the importance of community in 2026, especially in the AI era. We have got specific talk about turning GPTs into recurring revenue.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:09:40]:
I love that one. Future-proofing your sales in the AI Here, um, using AI to take some of the load and free up your capacity. That’s a really, really great one. Um, and we have basically some of those topics are just day 1. So day 1 is about creating magnetic offers and prepping your launch in a way that sets it up for success. Day 2 is about selling without burnout. So how do we consistently sell and create sustainable sales systems that mean we can be— our offers can be visible all the time without us having to be up all the time, or without having to mask or burn out or lose ourselves, right? So that’s what day 2 is all about, which is really the heart and soul of the Soulful Sales Summit and what I believe makes it the most unique selling summit that there is. Um, my friend Kate Cordesmire is talking about how she makes like $1K a day without social media and with limited capacity.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:10:42]:
Um, we have got people talking about selling in line with your values, your nervous system, Charging the right amount for your business to be sustainable. Maybe that’s the tweak that elevates your business in 2026, right? And then the final day is all about strategies that are working now. What is working now in the online offer world? How do we turn people from free signups to buyers? How do we stop relying on algorithms? How do we implement automations that help us Sell with lower capacity. So much goodness in this summit. And what I always say about these summits is, yes, there are a lot of things, a lot of presentations, a lot of talks, but if you, if you sign up to the summit and just choose, you know, 5 or 6, or even 1, if it’s the one thing you need, then that can change, like I said earlier, totally change the trajectory of your business in 2026. So I’ve been really, really intentional about inviting people in to have this conversation about what’s working now, not what was working in 2024, 2023, because some things have changed and it’s really important to acknowledge that, but it doesn’t mean everything has changed. It’s about focusing on it the right way. So I would love to have you as part of the Soulful Sales Summit.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:12:03]:
It starts in just over a week from the time of this episode going live. You can get your free ticket at soulfulsalessummit.com. And I really hope to see you there. You’ll find all of these links in the show notes, and I am so excited, especially to share my presentation on the elements of offers that are selling in 2026. I also have a brand new masterclass coming as part of the summit, which is all about building a sustainable ecosystem that takes people from freebie to buyer all the way in a way that is sustainable for you. So you’ll get access to that as well. All right. Go to soulfulsalesummit.com, get your free ticket, and I will catch you again next week.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:12:43]:
Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Soulful Sales. If you have a moment to rate and review, know that it really does make a difference. And if you would like to carry on the conversation, then you can connect with me in the free community at ruthpoundwhite.com/community, or my personal favorite, join me inside the Soulful Sales Society membership at ruthpoundwhite.com/membership. And keep doing what you’re doing because your work really does matter.